


Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word

by Eienvine



Category: The Good Cop (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-28 14:33:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16725240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eienvine/pseuds/Eienvine
Summary: Things have been tense between Cora and TJ since their fight over the personnel evaluations. Maybe another undercover assignment will give Cora a chance to say what needs to be said.





	Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word

**Author's Note:**

> Guys, I am posting this from my phone while out of town, so if there are massive mistakes I apologise. :-)

. . . . . .

The police gods have a weird sense of humor. That’s all Cora can figure when she and TJ are assigned to go undercover as a couple, again, only five weeks after the case at the Drake.

“Newlyweds this time,” says the captain. “Jenny Kartchner is a marriage counselor and blogger who holds these ‘meetups’ for newlyweds to, I don’t know, find other married friends. Over the last year, four of these couples have been burgled a few days after one of these meetups. Last month, the burglary went sideways and the couple was killed. You two are going to attend one of these meetups tonight. So go change into something less . . . cop-ish.”

And Cora is surprised at how pleased she is to hear it. It’s just that it’s been a while since she and TJ did anything, just the two of them, either on or off the job.

But a glance at TJ’s face, stony and distant, and her heart sinks.

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, and “I’ll meet you back here in two hours, Detective Vasquez,” and somehow that colorless tone is worse than him fighting with the captain last time.

It’s her fault, really—well, call it 50/50, she reflects as she goes back to her apartment to change into “something less cop-ish.” That fight last month over the personnel evaluations was pretty epic, but they would have gotten past it had it not come right on the heels of the awful fight they had over Warren. That’s a one-two punch their relationship hasn’t recovered from yet, and for the last five weeks TJ has just sort of withdrawn from her: no drinks at Farrell’s, no late night chats in the squad room, and he’s skipped his dad’s last few poker nights. When they do interact, he is never unkind—he’s TJ, he doesn’t do unkind—but he’s . . . formal. Professional. So unfailingly polite that it’s putting an undeniable distance between them.

And at work he’s been sending her off to do a lot of investigating on her own. Which is actually a huge compliment and expression of confidence, for him to give her so much responsibility. She can hear the apology in it: _I know I dinged you for your attitude, but that doesn’t mean I’m not aware that you’re a great detective_. It’s a chance for her to do good work, and show the higher ups what she’s worth. And she’s grateful, she really is, that he’s giving her the chance to prove herself.

But it means she hardly sees TJ anymore. And that has come to really bother her.

Bothers her a lot, she reflects two hours later in front of the building, as she slides into his passenger seat and he gives her a polite nod and a reminder to buckle up. They talk enough to come up with a cover story, and then he goes back to silently focusing on the road, and it bothers her a lot.

It bothers her because TJ’s one of her only friends, and she can’t afford to lose him.

And it bothers her because . . . well, just look at him, sitting there in jeans and a jacket, far more casual than she usually sees him where, just looking serious and thoughtful and irritatingly handsome. This estrangement from TJ has had the unexpected side effect of making her far more aware of him than she used to be. And she means that as a friend, but she also means that as, you know, a _man_. And it turns out he’s a man with some attractive qualities. Including looking pretty good in a casual jacket.

(This isn’t the first time she’s had this reaction to him; in fact, it’s been happening with increasing regularity for the last five weeks, to the point that sometimes she gets lost in just looking at him, and admiring him, and wondering—

And she’s started to wonder if she should do something about it, but with TJ barely looking at her these days, there doesn’t seem to be much of a point even considering that possibility.)

Anyway, it’s the thought that she can’t afford to lose him—the fact that he is so distant as they walk into the venue—that makes her dart in front of him, forcing him to stop and look at her.

“Caruso,” she says, “can we talk?”

He blinks. “About?”

“Us,” she shrugs a little uncomfortably. “About this last month—”

He glances around at the other couples making their way inside. “Can this wait?” he asks. “We’re in the middle of an assignment.”

“Well,” she says reasonably, “if we’re going to pretend to be a couple, we ought to at least be getting along.”

Something in his expression solidifies, like a wall going up. “We’ll be fine,” he says. “We were fine at the Drake, right?” The smile that his lips form is nearly convincing. “We fooled everyone there.” And he steps around her and keeps striding inside, and she’s about to object again when a couple approaches them to introduce themselves, and they can do nothing except slide into their happy couple act. Cora slips her hand into TJ’s, and pastes on a smile, and becomes Vicky Walton, happy homemaker.

The meetup is being held on the upper floor of an event space on the Upper West Side. There are thirty other couples in attendance, plus venue staff, catering staff, and Jenny Kartchner’s staff. Cora clocks them all with a casual glance as she leaves her jacket at the coat check; beside her, TJ does the same. (And she would vehemently deny being slightly distracted when he takes off his jacket and she sees his shirt sleeves are pushed up to his elbows. She just doesn’t see TJ’s forearms that often. Which is a shame. They’re nice.)

Luckily, two detectives on loan from the local precinct are embedded in the catering staff tonight, so TJ and Cora are responsible only for keeping an eye on the guests. So they set out to mingle before the meal starts, but end up with nothing to show for it; all the regular attendees were shocked to hear of the McKinneys’ deaths, and no one stands out as suspicious. And all the while, TJ is perfectly nice and normal—well, his version of normal—but she knows him well enough to see that every single one of his smiles at her is his undercover smile—his acting smile. Every single one.

So Cora is a little frustrated as they head to the seats marked “Vicky and Garrett Walton” for dinner and Jenny Kartchner’s presentation. She’s frustrated at their lack of success. She’s frustrated that TJ is still keeping her at arm’s distance, and that he rejected her attempt at patching things up. She’s frustrated because now that she’s noticed them once, she just keeps noticing his forearms. Every time she glances in his direction. And now she’s noticing his hands too, with his long piano player’s fingers. Every time she glances in his direction.

(If she took one of his hands now, would he take the action as an attempt to keep up their cover? Or would he smile politely at her and pull his hand away?)

And she’s frustrated because freaking Jenny Kartchner keeps talking about how wonderful it is that they’ve all married their best friends, and how they don’t have to be alone anymore, and she’s just feeling really single right now, okay?

And her heightened awareness of TJ has been noted, because when the presentation is over and TJ excuses himself to ask the catering staff for another fork (an excuse to talk to the other undercover detectives), one of the women at the table leans toward Cora.

“So how long have you two been married?” Her name tag identifies her as Megan.

“Two months,” says Cora, as per their cover story.

“I could tell it was recent,” Megan smiles. “You two are still so obviously in love.”

Cora blinks. “Are we?”

“Oh, for sure,” she says. “You’re not very physically affectionate—some people just aren’t—but I’ve been watching you and you two just gravitate toward each other.”

“Do we?”

Another woman—name tag says Sara—pipes in. “Yes, I noticed how you two kept looking at each other during the presentation. It was really sweet.”

Cora knows she kept looking at TJ. Was TJ really looking back? That is an interesting piece of information.

“So how did you meet?” asks Megan.

So Cora tells them the story they made up, about Vicky and Garrett meeting in college and remaining in contact on and off for the next six years, until they moved into the same neighborhood and started spending more time together.

“And when did you know that he was the one?” asks Sara. “Was there a moment where you just went ‘Wow, this guy is something special’?”

This was not part of their cover story; Cora is on her own. And she’s about to make something up when movement catches her eye and she looks up to see TJ coming back to the table. He stands behind Sara, his dark eyes fixed on hers, obviously waiting to see what story she comes up with so he can work it into his own cover story. And she can’t tear her eyes away. She wonders why it took so many months of knowing him for her to notice that he is rather handsome, in his way. She wonders if things are ever going to get back to normal for them. She wonders if things could ever be . . . better, than their old normal.

And she has an idea.

“Yeah, actually,” she says, her eyes fixed on TJ’s a moment. Then she smiles at Sara; it doesn’t take much acting to make the smile a little bittersweet and sad. “I had just gone through a horrible breakup,” she says, and hesitates. “Really horrible. Like, he-put-me-in-the-hospital horrible.”

Gasps and murmurs of concern echo around the table.

“And not long before that, me and Garrett had the worst fight. He could see the kind of guy my fiance really was, and he was trying to warn me, and I just didn’t want to hear it. And I said some stuff I still regret.” She glances up at TJ, apology in her eyes, and sees his expression soften in response. “Like, awful stuff. And when it turned out he was right, I was so sure he’d be mad at me, for lashing out the way I did. But he rushed to the hospital and came and found me, and he just said, ‘I’m so glad you’re all right.’ And I thought, ‘Who does that? Like, what kind of man is that forgiving when I don’t feel like I deserve it?’ And that’s when I knew . . .” She lifts her gaze again to meet TJ’s. “This guy is something special.”

Everything she’s said so far is true. And TJ’s brow furrows in confusion.

The entire table has been hanging on her every word. “Then what?” prompts Megan. “Did he ask you out?”

Ah, the perfect reason to continue; thanks, Megan. “No, things kind of got worse after that. We had another huge fight. I . . . he did something that made me feel like he didn’t respect me, especially professionally. I see now why he did what he did, and that we were both in the wrong in different ways, but at the time I was just furious with him.” She shrugs, stealing another glance at TJ, who looks very serious at the moment; she hopes that’s not a bad sign. “I think having that other fight not that long before made this one worse, you know? Some unresolved issues from the first fight leaked through. Anyway things were weird between us for weeks after that.” She looks back up at TJ, holding his gaze steadily. “And I really worried that things were ruined between us. And I realized how much I’d regret that. Losing him.”

Sara and Megan and their husbands look downright enthralled. “And then?” Sara demands.

And then nothing: they’ve reached the present. So Cora instead speaks of her hopes. “So I apologized. I said I missed him, and I wanted him back in my life.” TJ fidgets, his gaze on the table. “He apologized too,” she adds pointedly, and sees TJ bite back a grin.

And she looks at him a long moment: her lanky awkward friend, the last honest man, who drives her crazy when they’re together, but causes more unhappiness with his absence. And she makes a decision. “And then I told him: hanging at our favorite bar, poker nights, it wasn’t the same without him. I told him I’d started seeing him differently lately, in the weeks we hadn’t been talking. That I wasn’t only seeing him as a friend anymore.”

TJ freezes.

“And he asked me out.” She looks steadily at TJ, but he’s still not looking at her. “And here we are.”

There’s a long moment where the rest of the table coos over the story, and TJ stands still as a statue. Then he slowly lifts his head to look at her, his eyes some desperate mix of despair and hope.

She stares back.

Until “Caruso! The assistant!” echoes through the air, and everyone looks over to see two of the catering staff in hot pursuit of a woman in a pantsuit on the other side of the room. TJ takes off like a shot; it takes Cora a moment longer to push her chair back from the table and join the chase.

Three minutes later they are out on the front lawn; TJ is cuffing the suspect and Cora is looking through the pictures on the woman’s camera. “Lots of pictures of the McKinneys in here,” she observes. “Lots of closeups on Mrs. McKinney’s jewelry.” She lowers the camera to grin at the publicist. “You got an explanation for that?”

The woman glowers as the other two detectives lead her to a squad car.

But now there’s hours of work to do: follow-up with suspects and witnesses at the venue and the squad room, and piles of paperwork. So it’s after two by the time Cora and TJ are walking out to their cars together.

They haven’t had a second to talk all this time, and she’s dying to know what he thought about what she said. But though it goes against her nature, she decides not to pry. Let him work through it in his head before she makes him talk about it.

And they’re halfway to where they parked when he finally speaks. “I’m sorry about the evaluations,” he says quietly, his eyes fixed on the ground. “Not about what I gave you—I stand by that—but I really meant to come talk to you about it. You know, help you understand my reasoning, tell you I know you can improve and how much potential I see in you. But I put it off for too long and then you saw it before I’d meant for you to, and . . .”

“I’m sorry too,” she says quietly. “Yelling at you, and then all that stuff I pulled when we were undercover . . .” She can’t help smiling at the memory of it. “You might be right about my attitude. About me being flippant with authority. I can work on that.”

“You’re a great detective, Cora,” he reassures her, as the streetlights paint him gold. “I know you’re going to go far.”

“Thank you.”

And then she waits for him to say more.

And he doesn’t.

“Aren’t you going to ask me?” she says finally. “About the rest of it?”

He glances at her, and she knows he understands. But he says nothing for a long while, and they’re nearly to her car by the time he asks quietly, “How much of it was true?” But he doesn’t sound hopeful; he sounds . . . like a man facing a firing squad. He doesn’t expect this conversation to go well, she realizes. And she can hardly blame him. The last time they discussed anything related to their feelings for each other, she basically accused him of falsifying evidence against a civilian in a fit of jealousy.

Yeah, not her finest moment.

“It was all true,” she says steadily. “Right up to the end. And then it was wishful thinking.”

There’s no visible reaction from TJ, who has come to a stop by her car, staring out at the dark street. Then he finally looks over at her, his face inscrutable. “Please just tell me what you’re thinking,” he says quietly. “I’ve been trying to guess what’s on your mind for months, and clearly I keep doing a terrible job of it.”

She understands why he can’t tell what she’s thinking, because the truth is that she hardly knows herself. He’s her boss, and them together would be his favorite word: an infraction. And for all that she gives him crap about his need to follow rules, she’d only follow her pseudo-anarchist philosophy so far. She’s ambitious, and she has big plans for her career with the NYPD. And she knows how it’d look, if it came out that she was secretly dating her superior. She knows how it would affect her chances for promotion.

But on the other hand, she thinks she and TJ could have something—really have something. And the unwanted stepchild she once was, the woman who rushed into three ill-advised engagements in an attempt to finally find someone who genuinely loves her and won’t abandon her—those parts of her are loudly insisting that TJ’s more important than NYPD regulations. That this time has more potential than all the other times; she’s known TJ for more than a year, and he’s seen her at her worst and not run away yet, and she knows him better than she knows anybody and she’s still interested, and that gives her hope that the two of them could go all the way. That TJ might be The One.

And that’s worth taking a risk for.

“I’m thinking I like you,” she says. “That I have feelings for you.” And she has to admit she enjoys knowing she has the power to put that look—overwhelmed, surprised, confused, but touchingly hopeful—on his face. “I’m thinking I don’t know what to do about that fact; I know it’s an infraction.”

The tiniest smile touches his face.

“But most of all I’m thinking, I don’t want to work next to you for the next who-knows-how-long and pretend I don’t feel the way I do. I’m thinking I don’t want to look back on my life, fifty years from now, and wonder how things would have gone differently if we’d given this a try. And I’m thinking—no, I _know_ , I won’t look back and think ‘Well, I can die without any rule infractions on my conscience, and that’s totally worth never having been with TJ.’”

His eyes have been widening with every word out of her mouth, and now he stares at her, jaw slightly dropped. “That’s . . . an interesting perspective.”

And then there’s silence, while Cora fights the urge to fidget nervously. “So . . . do you have any response to anything just said?” she asks finally.

His brow furrows. “It’s an infraction,” he says apologetically, and she rolls her eyes.

“I know. Anything else?” She hesitates. “I mean, I thought maybe you felt the same way, a little. Or at least you did before our fight. Am I totally reading this wrong?”

And his expression falls into a rueful, self-deprecating grin. “No, you’re not,” he admits, and her pulse accelerates. “You’ve always read me better than anyone else.”

Okay, being pretty confident about his feelings is one thing; hearing him say it is quite another, and there’s fire behind her sternum and heat in her cheeks.

“So?” she asks, and reaches out to take his hand in hers. “I mean, do you want to? Try?”

He stares at their interlaced fingers. “Of course I want to,” he half-whispers. “But Cora—”

“Okay, so how’s this?” she interrupts. “We go out on a date before we worry about anything else. Because maybe we realize this is a bad idea, and we give up on it and it doesn’t affect our jobs and we feel good because we don’t have to wonder anymore. Or maybe we realize it’s a brilliant idea, and we figure out what to do next.”

He looks back up at her, and when he repeats “A date?” there is both reluctance and hope in his voice.

“I’m free Friday,” she says. “I like Italian food.”

“Huh,” he says, sounding bewildered, and she wonders if he notices that his gaze keeps darting down to her mouth.

She smiles and moves a step closer. He shifts a little too, and suddenly they’re close enough for her to feel his body heat across the cold night, his hand still warm in hers.

He looks at her mouth again. That’s enough for her, and she leans up; a moment later he leans down. The kiss is brief and sweet, and when TJ pulls back he looks dazed. But in a good way, apparently, because after a moment he leans in to kiss her again. And this one is definitely not brief.

She can’t remember the last time she was kissed like this. It’s not that he’s great at it—he’s sort of middling at best—but that usually guys kiss her like they’re trying to get something out of it. TJ kisses her like he’s trying to give her something, like he’s worshipping her with his touch. And the tenderness in his lips, in his hands at her waist and jaw, leaves her weak at the knees.

They should have done this a long time ago.

He seems similarly affected; when they finally pull away he keeps his hands on her, his eyes closed, his forehead leaning against hers, his breath shaky. “Friday?” he whispers.

That prompts a quiet laugh. “Friday,” she agrees, and he opens his eyes and leans back. There’s still a certain gravity in his expression, but after a moment of looking at her, he smiles, shaky and hopeful and bright. She grins back.

He’ll probably talk himself out of this three times a day between now and Friday, but she’s ready to keep convincing him.

To that end, she thinks she’d better kiss him again.

. . . . . .

fin


End file.
